Karofsky meets Carly
by myhiddenlove08
Summary: Companion story to I Will Be Your Comfort. Karofsky's day at the Lima Woman's Shelter. Will he realize how wrong he's been?


Well its finally here haha. Karofsky's day at the woman's shelter. Its short, but I feel its powerful. In the end I went with the more tame storyline, the more tame story behind the girl he meets. I hope you guys like it.

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David Karofsky reluctantly followed Miss Pillsberry into the Lima woman's shelter on a Saturday. He dragged his feet the whole way. The whole thing was bullshit, finding a way around the rules to punish him for Rachel. However he was drawn from his thoughts as he realized the sounds around him had fallen quite steeply in volume. He began to look around. They had just entered and were in a waiting room. In the waiting room he saw quite a few women. Some had kids with them. Some had black eyes. He saw one woman who wasn't hurt but when she saw him, she tightened her arms protectively around her little girl, whose arm was in a cast. He looked away. He hadn't done anything but she was scared of him?

"These women are all here seeking refuge from husbands, boyfriends, brothers, uncles-"

"Men," said Karofsky shortly. The guidance councilor nodded.

"You won't be working with the newcomers though." Karofsky didn't respond. He had realized that the moment he saw the fear sparked in some of those women's eyes at the sight of him, who they hadn't seen before. As he followed Miss Pillsberry he soon just kept his eyes focused on the ground. Just meeting his eye, some women had begun to shake. He found himself even feeling guilty just for being there. The guidance counselor stopped outside a door.

"Do I need to tell you to watch yourself?" Karofsky shook his head and Miss Pillsberry nodded, happy he at least got the hint.

"This is who you'll be working with," said Miss Pillsberry opening the door. Inside there was a girl around his age, relaxing on her bed. She looked up and smiled, but Karofsky could tell she was slightly nervous, her hands had curled into fists and her whole body was tense.

"Hello Emma," she said.

"Hello Carly. This is David Karofsky," replied Emma with a smile. "He's here with me to volunteer." Carly's smile now reached her eyes as she relaxed.

"Hello David. I'm Carly."

"Hey," he said walking into the room, digging his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket.

"I'll just be outside," said Emma. Carly nodded. After a moment of silence, awkward in Karofsky's opinion, Carly spoke.

"So what do you play?" He looked at her oddly.

"Your jacket. What sport do you play?" she asked.

"Oh. Hockey."

"You know I never really got into hockey. The basic three for me. Football, baseball, and basketball," she said laughing. He looked at her, amused.

"Oh don't look like that," she chided. "Girl's can like sports too." He just shrugged which caused to her to laugh.

"You haven't done this before have you?" she asked. He shook his head. She pointed to a chair close to her bed.

"Sit. Tell me about what's going on in the sports world. We don't get tvs in our rooms and I guess you can imagine how difficult it would be to convince the women in the tv lounge to watch sports."

Karosky sat and began to tell her about the newest headlines. After they began to fall silent again he spoke up.

"So what happened to you?" he asked. She fixed him with a look.

"I'll forgive that question since you're new. That's a big no-no. You should have figured that out after walking in the front door." Karofsky winced.

"If someone wants to tell you their story they will, but you don't ask. You don't ask how they got the cast on their arm or the scar on their face. Most of the women are still freaked out by men in the first place."

"You weren't that bad," he said. "I mean you were tense but you weren't freaking." She shrugged.

"I've been here for a while." Karofsky couldn't help but think that if she had been here a while and was still reacting in a negative way towards a man that something bad must have happened. Then the thought that every woman in the shelter was exactly the same kind of shook him.

"Do people stay here until they aren't freaked out anymore?" he asked.

"Some longer. Especially if they don't have anywhere to go," replied Carly. "Now tell me about your football team. Is it as bad as it was last year?" she teased.

Karofsky spent the next hour with Carly, discussing sports and subsequently arguing and teasing the other about their favorite sports teams.

"You know I've been wondering something," said Carly.

"What?"

"Why did you ask me about what happened to me? I mean volunteering here you must know what most of the women have gone through. Was it just a slip up?"

"Well…" said Karofsky, fidgeting. Carly's smile turned sad.

"You aren't volunteering of your own free will are you?"

"No," admitted Karofsky, looking down. He felt ashamed... It had been nice just talking sports. Every now and then he had even forgotten he was here for a punishment. And the betrayal in Carly's eyes...

"What did you do?" she asked him. "School's don't send kids here normally as a community service punishment. Especially boys."

"I said something 'derogatory towards another student'," he told her. "But it's just because they can't prove I did something else."

"What was it?" Her tone made it less of a question and more of a demand.

"I…" He paused. He couldn't say it. Not to her. Not here. And it hit him.

He was angry at himself, upset even, for doing that to Berry.

"...scared a girl…" he finished lamely but the look in her eyes... She knew. He didn't bother clarifying that he hadn't actually... There was no clarifying in this place... Carly nodded.

"I'm going to tell you what happened to me then you're going to have to leave," she said softly, but there was no room for argument in that soft voice. The softness striking harder at him than if she had slapped him.

"I had a boyfriend. He got stressed out pretty easily and sometimes I would accidently set him off. It was just fights at first but then he started hitting me. The fights always ended then and he would feel so horrible and apologize for the next couple days. I blamed myself for getting him stressed in the first place." She paused.

"I got pregnant my sophomore year in high school. He was so happy. It wasn't something we had planned but he was genuinely happy about it. One day I had one of my close guy friends take me to my appointment to check up on the baby since my boyfriend was working and I didn't want him to miss work just to take me to a regular appointment. That night my boyfriend came home extremely upset. It was the first time we had fought since I had gotten pregnant. He was convinced that the guy friend who had taken me to the appointment was the real father, that I was cheating on him." She took a deep breath.

"He raped me. And before you ask, yes boyfriends and even husbands can rape their girlfriends or wives. No means no." She hugged her arms to her stomach. Karofsky felt sick. He was a junior. If she was his age, and she got pregnant the year before that had to mean…

"I lost my baby that night…" she whispered, a few tears falling. "My beautiful baby girl…" She captured Karofsky's eyes with hers.

"You are going to leave now, and you have a decision to make. You have to decide if you want to be the Dave who was being wonderful with me for the last hour, or the Dave who 'scared' that girl."

Karofsky looked at Carly, opening his mouth as if to say something, to apologize, anything, but nothing came out.

"Leave Dave," she said. He got up stiffly and left, pausing outside the door to Carly's room before sitting on a chair close by. His head hung low, if only to hide the few tears that were rolling down his face. Emma slowly approached him.

"David?"

"I get it," he said roughly. "Can I go now?" Emma hesitated.

"Okay." Karofsky was up out of the chair before she could blink. Later that day, at hockey practice a few players asked him about the volunteering, joking around.

"Girls are off limits to anything but slushies," was all he would say about it. Nate hid his smile before sending off a group text.

_Karofsky really got the message. Have nothing to worry about other than slushies._

On Monday, rumors circulated that Karofsky had been seen in the guidance counselor's office of his own free will. They were all dismissed as soon as they started. But the Glee kids wondered.

He had gone to Miss Pillsberry.

"Tell Carly I'm sorry," he said sharply.

"Why don't you tell her yourself David?" the red head replied.

"She wouldn't want to see me." Miss Pillsberry paused.

"Ok, how 'bout this? Just leave your number with me. I'll give it to her with your message and see what she wants to do."

Karofsky didn't reply but did scrawl his number down on the paper Miss Pillsberry had nudged towards him.

And when his phone buzzed that night, he couldn't fight the grateful smile that spread across his face.

He may not have realized it, but Miss Pillsberry knew. And Carly knew. He had changed. She had changed him. And… something he probably would never realize… He had changed her too. To see a boy, a high school boy, change, evolve, step up, just from meeting her… She smiled as she talked to him over the phone. She would be ok. She would leave the woman's shelter one day. Trust a man again. Love again. Have a baby. Because no matter how forced he had been to come there… He still allowed his eyes to be opened. And that gave her the hope, the belief… Not all men were the same.

_Thank you David._


End file.
